Teaching code

4S002927

Teacher

Chiara Battisti

Coordinator

Chiara Battisti

Credits

9

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

I semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Sep 27, 2021 al Jan 8, 2022.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning outcomes

The module, taught in English, is meant to guide the students through a critical approach to the English Literature of the period going from the Restoration to late Romanticism, especially in relation to a representative range of texts of the canon. Besides, it aims at getting the students familiar with fundamental tools necessary for text analysis and genre criticism. Its overall goal is to provide the students with a good knowledge of the British literature of the set literary period (its historical context, its texts, genres, movements/authors) and of helping them develop skills for analysis, argumentation and exposition in English, in relation to various typologies of literary texts in their historical-cultural context.

At the end of the module, students will be able to:
-analyze the literary texts set in the syllabus in their historical-cultural contexts;
-argumentatively discuss them by taking into account literary conventions and by applying an informed critical approach that is aware of the literary nature of the text;
-demonstrate the acquired knowledge and skills, in English and in a clear and consistent way.

Program

In the footsteps of Frankenstein: from the canon to the hypertext

The course will explore the rise of the English gothic novel.
In line with the specificity of the curriculum, part of the course will be devoted to the newest form of Gothic: its incursion into the graphic novel world and into new media, including the hypertext.

Teaching Method

Students who attend the course: the course will be held in English through lectures and will also include parts for reflection and discussion on the part of the students upon the topics under consideration. Slides related to the topics of the course and used during the lessons will be uploaded to Moodle and are part of the programme.
Students who do not attend the course are required to contact Prof. Battisti. They can access Moodle and the uploaded slides which are part of the programme.
All students can ask for further references or about the topics of the course during the receiving hours (as indicated on the webpage)

A) Primary Texts:
• Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, 1764.
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, 1818.
• Lita Judgem, Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein, 2018.

B) Critical Texts:
-- Catherine Spooner, Emma McEvoy (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Gothic, 2007.(Part I Gothic traditions. Sections: Gothic Traditions; Eighteenth-Century Gothic; Gothic and the Romantics; Part III Gothic Concepts. Sections: Gothic Concepts; The Uncanny; Gothic Femininities; Gothic Masculinities; Part IV Gothic Media. Sections: Gothic and the Graphic Novel; Gothic and New Media)
--Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, HarperCollins, 1993.
-- Paul Hackman, “ ‘I Am a Double Agent’: Shelley Jackso’s Patchwork Girl and the Persistence of Print in the Age of Hypertext” Contemporary Literature, Vol 52, N. 1 (Spring 2011), pp 84-107.
--Devon Hodges, “Frankenstein and the Feminine Subversion of the Novel,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol 2, N.2 (Autumn. 1983), pp.155-164.

C) History of literature: Andrew Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature, (from Chapter 4 to Chapter 6)

Bibliography

Examination Methods

The lessons will be in English. The exam will be an oral discussion in English on the topic of the course and the texts in the program (parts A,B,C).

The exam is the same for attending and non-attending students and for Erasmus students.
Students who do not attend the course are required to contact Prof. Battisti.